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Tuesday, April 16, 2013

April 14, 2013 - Faith in the Modern Age: The Spirit in the Modern Age

John
3:1-8

A couple of weeks ago I parked beside a truck, and as I walked
behind the truck I noticed a sticker on the back that read Custom Creations by… sticker.I’m not sure what constitutes a Custom
Creation, as this truck was banged up, dented, scratched, and was basically
a disaster in appearance.If I
were the Custom Creation guy would
want my name removed from it.

It may be a poor analogy, but I can’t help but wonder if God
sometimes feels that way about churches – don’t
put my name on something that seems beat up, broken down worn out, and out of
touch.And that is how some
people see the church:broken
down, out of date, irrelevant and something they are not interested in stepping
into.

We are continuing our series of messages Faith in the Modern Age, and as we do we are considering The Spirit in the Modern Age. We live in an age of science, technology, and
materialism – not the kind of materialism that is based on finances, but the
kind that only sees the physical universe and cannot recognize the spiritual
component of life.The Spirit
doesn’t fit very easily into our modern world, but we so need it.We’ll read of an encounter between
Jesus and Nicodemus, and in the conversation Jesus says something interesting
about the Spirit.Listen to what
he says in John 3:1-8 –

1 Now there was a
Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council.

2 He came to Jesus
at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from
God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with
him.”

3 Jesus replied,
“Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born
again.”

4 “How can someone
be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second
time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

5 Jesus answered,
“Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are
born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the
Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my
saying, ‘You must be born again.’

8 The wind blows
wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes
from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

What does the Spirit mean in the modern age?

1.The Spirit opens our eyes.

By my first semester in high school had decided I wanted to be an
engineer, so I took Algebra.I
failed the class.By the middle of
the semester I was totally lost, and it didn’t help that I asked my teacher why
2 + 2 had to equal 4.I wanted to
know why 2 + 2 can’t equal 5.I
still don’t understand why 2 + 2 can’t equal whatever we decide we want it to equal.I just don’t get it.

Poor Nicodemus.He
didn’t get it either.He could not
wrap his head around what Jesus said to him – Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of
God unless they are born again.” “How can someone be born when they are old?”
Nicodemus asked.

It wasn’t that seeing the kingdom was forbidden or disallowed for
Nicodemus; he simply couldn’t see it though it was right in front of him.His eyes were closed to the
kingdom.But the Spirit opens our
eyes, the Spirit reorients our thinking, and the Spirit gives us a new
perspective on life.The Spirit
opens our eyes to see life, the world, and people in a new light.

2.The Spirit brings
life.

I imagine the group in New York is
having a great time in church this morning.Not that we don’t have a great time here, but we probably
aren’t quite as energetic as the Brooklyn Tabernacle.I am not Pentecostal, but I understand part of the appeal of
that style of worship.It is so
energetic because it is so focused on the joy of life, even in the midst of
great struggle.

The Spirit brings life, because
everywhere God moves, there is life.The Spirit is like a river of cook, fresh water running into a dry,
barren desert.The Spirit helps us
to understand the life that God brings and the reality that life itself is
God’s great gift.

3.The Spirit allows us to
be more flexible and adaptable, qualities that are necessary in the modern
age.

There is an element of
unpredictability about the Spirit.We don’t know where it is going, and we must not be so structured that
we miss the moving of the Spirit.This is what Jesus meant when he compared the Spirit to a wind the
blows.The Spirit seems to appear
out of nowhere and without warning.Just as quickly as it comes, it can seem to disappear.Sometimes, we can be so structured that
we squeeze out the Spirit.Individuals, and churches, need to be prepared to adapt and change, and
to do so quickly as our world changes around us.

4.The Spirit makes us
more compassionate.

Our modern age is very complicated,
and it seems to grow increasingly complex with the passing of each day.One of the dangers of this complexity,
I fear, is a diminishing expression of compassion.As we struggle to survive our complex lives we are often,
without realizing it, pulled into ourselves, which can lead to a great deal of
preoccupation with self.This is
not fertile ground for compassion.The role of the Spirit is to prompt us to look beyond our own lives and
to realize there are people within our sphere of influence who need our
compassion and our care.

5.The Spirit is
experiential.

Sometimes we hear people say been there, done that, got the T-shirt to go
with it.We live in an age
where people have become more experiential,
that is, they long for and expect to experience
something.People don’t want to simply
hear about mission work, they want to go and do mission work; they don’t want
to hear about other cultures, they want to go and experience those cultures for
themselves; and they don’t want to just hear about God, they want to experience God.This desire for an experience is the driving force behind the changing of worship
style in recent years.Worship is
becoming more experiential because
people want to experience
something.

People are often desperate to have
an experience that confirms God has touched them.That is the Spirit moving in them.

When my mother-in-law lived on Tybee Island one of my favorite
activities was body surfing.I had
a body board and when the tide was coming in I would grab the board, run down
to the beach, and get in the water and to ride those waves.Body boarding is a bit tricky, for two
reasons.First, it’s hard to catch
the wave just right.You can’t get
too far out in front of the wave or it will crash on top of you.And second, if the wave gets too far
ahead of you it rolls past you and you miss it.The key is trying to catch the front of the wave just as it
begins to break.If you catch it
just right you hold on tight and enjoy the ride.But once you catch the wave you have to stay with it, or the
wave will pummel you into the sand, and you know what?Sand really hurts, especially when the
tremendous weight of all that water is driving you into the sand.

When it comes to the Spirit, the key is being able to catch the
Spirit, much like we would catch a wave.